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Sunday, September 6, 2015

Popularity Equivalents

I know, we see it all the time: "Oh, I love Sophia, but it's the most popular name!" Name-nerds know of course that the popular names of today are hardly equivalent to Jennifer or Jessica from our generation, but still, that "#1" label is intimidating.
So, how popular are our kids' names really?
Obviously this will vary a bit based on region and personal experience, but here are a few "milepost" names from 2014, and their popularity equivalents for some previous years (based on percentage, since the birth rate fluctuates, and as we'll find, rankings aren't necessarily indicative ;) )

2014 name & rank

2000 equivalent

1995

1990

1985

1980

1975

1970

Noah (#1)

David (#16)

Alexander (#21)

Kevin (#23)

Steven (#24)

Thomas (#25)

Timothy (#22)

Matthew (#24)

Daniel (#10)

Noah (#27)

Christian (#28)

Adam (#32)

Aaron (#33)

Aaron (#34)

Paul (#29)

Ronald (#29)

Joseph (#20)

Hunter (#35)

Dylan (#34)

Richard (#35)

Sean (#38)

Nathan (#36)

Kenneth (#35)

Patrick (#33)

Aaron (#50)

Luis (#49)

Alex (#47)

Austin (#55)

Shawn (#55)

Edward (#52)

Bradley (#52)

Dennis (#46)

Camden / Tristan (#100)

Spencer (#98)

Isaac (#98)

Jesus (#90)

Luis (#85)

Brent (#84)

Billy (#84)

Jimmy (#86)

Jonas (#500)

Walker (#426)

Felipe (#413)

Keenan (#391)

Kent (#349)

Julius (#352)

Dan (#369)

Jonathon (#354)

Sutton / Garrison (#1001)

Khalid (#783)

Thaddeus (#756)

Uriel (#687)

Wilfredo (#632)

Heriberto (#637)

Kim (#631)

Sonny (#582)

Emma (#1)

Hannah (#2)

Sarah (#5)

Jennifer (#8)

Melissa (#11)

Michelle (#10)

Lisa (#8)

Melissa (#7)

Charlotte (#10)

Anna (#22)

Alyssa (#27)

Laura (#29)

Andrea (#33)

Shannon (#29)

Karen (#27)

Christina (#35)

Aubrey (#20)

Hailey (#35)

Olivia (#39)

Kristen (#42)

Christine (#44)

Christine (#41)

Crystal (#43)

Debra (#47)

Sarah (#50)

Makayla (#67)

Briana (#74)

Brooke (#70)

Meghan (#63)

Lindsay (#71)

Kristin (#74)

Laurie (#88)

Jasmine (#100)

Kelly (#111)

Meghan (#112)

Haley (#108)

Carrie (#96)

Sabrina (#113)

Vanessa (#115)

Annette (#128)

Evie (#501)

Taryn (#448)

Shawna (#425)

Celeste (#398)

Jackie (#388)

Melisa (#405)

Sherrie (#406)

Tabatha (#401)

Kai (#999)

Shaylee (#830)

Magdalena (#772)

Deja (#746)

Peggy (#697)

Sunshine (#703)

Sandi (#702)

Candi (#655)

So here's how it works: in 2014 Emma was given to about an equal percentage of girls as Hannah was in 2000; Sarah was in 1995; Jennifer was in 1990, and so on. You may also notice an interesting phenomenon--while the popular names today are less common than in previous generations, less popular names are actually more common. A name ranked at #1000 in 1980 would have been given to fewer children than the #1000 name today.
And unfortunately, this does not take alternate spellings into account, so a name like Aubrey, which has a few different spellings, probably actually corresponds to a slightly more common name in the past. Likewise, 2014 Sarah is only equivalent to Makayla in 2000--that doesn't include Michaela or Mikayla or Micaela.

If you wish to look up a certain name, the whole spreadsheets are here.
Yeah, I only did every 5 years, 1970-2000, because a) it's a lot of data & I'm lazy, and b) I figured most people on the internet interested in name trends were born between those years. ;)